DD working on the tee

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DD is 11 and has really been struggling at the plate. We've been working in the backyard trying to just get her confidence back up. I shot some video and thought maybe you guys could take a look and tell me what you see. I've never posted a video before so I hope it works. Thanks.

RayR

Guest

How is she struggling? No contact, weak contact, pop ups?

The big thing I see is the back elbow leading the swing and getting ahead of the hands. This will cause the bat head to take longer to come around. She may pound some balls, but will also cause her to be late and jammed at times.

Mostly no contact, her swing at the plate is much different. She's overstriding, lunging, bending her front knee, dropping her back shoulder and is indecisive. If she does make contact, it's a weak grounder. Her hands seem too slow also. She just seems lost up there at the moment. I'll try to get some video of her in a game this weekend.

it appears to me that there is some bat lag going on. She doesn't look connected. My daughter was doing the same thing but probaly worse. I might also have her stick her butt out a little bit. She looks very tall....not in a athletic position before and during the swing??

Been working on drills for 2 wks and she has hit 2 HR's. So I hope she is on her way. She is taking 150-200 cuts a day.

Things we are doing that might help you guys:
back hand upside down on bat
Fence drill
one arm swings.....thought is to stay on top of the ball. No looping

She has made a serious effort and it seems to be paying off for her. Good luck. It takes time but it will come.

I would also tell her to have a purpose when hitting off the tee. Take her time and go through her thought process so that in a game it is second nature.

Like the other two posters said, there is some noticeable bat drag. That's probably why her hands seem slow to you. When the back elbow leads the hands as much as it is doing with her swings here, it takes the hands a lot longer to get into the hitting zone.

It also might just be the angle, but it looks like she is standing way off the plate. She won't have much choice but to make poor contact on anything on the outer half of the plate if she's as far off as it looks here.

Another thing that is of concern to me is that she appears to be "bug squishing" with her back foot. There isn't much weight transfer going to her front leg. Freeze frame her swing at impact and compare with this swing by Megan Bush, which resulted in a HR at the WCWS:

Our hitting coach and I have been working with my DD recently on this very thing. She didn't bug-squish but she wasn't getting a lot of momentum going forward either. As we worked on stride-and-separate, I noticed that any semblance of bat drag disappeared when she made that move correctly.

One drill we use quite a bit is the walkthrough drill. I'll let Mike Candrea explain it.

I was having the same issues with my DD during game time. What we noticed she was doing was rolling the wrists over too early which completely took her out of her swing. Lunging, bent front knee, overstriding, etc. Just plain ugly...

Once we caught on to what was going on, we remind her of having her knuckles forward and swing long through the ball....This past weekend she was pouding the ball...and got an mvp patch for hitting 3 trips in one game.

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This is a very important clue. Try and video her swings in a real game. Look at those swings and show her those swings. If they are far different than her practice swings she has to be convinced by you and convince herself that she will not succeed until she can duplicate in a game situation what she does in practice. At her age I've worked with many girls who's game mode is simply "survival mode" at the plate, even if they have made progress at practice. She must acknowledge and try to change her approaching in the game to match her practice swing.

Regarding the actual swing: I would have her be more agressive, athletic and powerful with all of the movements off the tee. Then you can see what she will need to do. Her swing on the video isn't that far away but if that is her confidence and energy off of a tee it likely is even less intense and a bit more doubt filled in a game. Everything is a little too casual. If she is guessing and unsure at the plate...that is as big an issue as any that you need to address.

Watching the video I don't like the way she starts any of her swings. Her load move is to a straight up and down back leg, with shoulder moving past the vertical line her back leg makes. You cannot making a positive move from this position, you can only fall forward until your past vertical and then push.

I'd prefer the back leg to stay at an angle on the load move and the shoulder to stay within the knees, also knees bent slightly.

Also if this is her effort level when practicing she won't make progress at a very good rate. I'd rather see 10 hard swings than 100 swings at 80% effort. That may also be why you see something different here than at games.